


Round in circles

by Amurleopard123



Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians & Related Fandoms - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Anxiety, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Panic Attacks, Social Anxiety, trigger warning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-01
Updated: 2018-12-01
Packaged: 2019-09-02 23:27:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,111
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16796812
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Amurleopard123/pseuds/Amurleopard123
Summary: Nico has anxiety. On one day, he wakes up and knows it's a bad day. He does everything to try to keep it from tipping over the edge, but everything just becomes overwhelming.





	Round in circles

**Author's Note:**

> So first of all, I'd like to say that I have social anxiety disorder, generalised anxiety disorder and panic attack disorder. I have been formally diagnosed with these, unless I'm remembering incorrectly. This one shot is mainly a way for me to try to work through my own shortcomings and I'm painfully are at how bad I am at articulating it. Please, criticise me, correct me. I'd love to try and correct it. At the time of writing, I've been recovering from one of the worst panic attacks I've ever had, so sorry if the endings shitty. The basic situation is based on me and my sister a few months ago with a few made up bits and stuff for dramatic effect and plot convenience.

An incessant alarm is an object which haunts the dreams of those who require them to be punctual. Such is their nature and function, but it doesn’t prevent them from being **_fucking annoying_**.

Nico di Angelo already had a headache. Now he had two. Which was an absolutely brilliant start to the day. 

Muttering Italian obscenities at the source of the noise, Nico pulled himself out of his complicated bed and threw the alarm clock, with all his strength, at the opposing wall. The clock bounced, landed hard on the black marble floor, and fell apart into a small heap of curved metal, shattered glass and clock-parts.

‘Nice going, di Angelo’ muttered a voice from the door. Nico turned towards the open door, ready to snap at whoever it was who intruded. He opened his mouth. Blinked. And closed it.

‘Morning, Lou Ellen, don't you have your cat to feed?’

The daughter of Hecate huffed with annoyance. 

‘You’re late. And I already fed Lamia. Don't pretend you don't love her.’ 

She then pointed a hand in the vicinity of the destroyed clock, returning it to its state of perpetual annoyance. 

‘And that’s the fifth time I’ve had to repair that thing for you. I’m just going ask Leo to make a regenerating alarm clock, at this rate’

Nico tried to smile, but he just didn’t really feel it. He felt numb, obscured. He could already tell this was going to be a bad day.

‘I’ll be along in a minute.’

Lou Ellen frowned, but left the doorway, leaving sunlight streaming in where she had obstructed it. Nico was left to stare at the wall. He looked down at his left arm and sighed. It was covered with pen, words swirled in a sleeve of writing from his upper bicep, to his elbow, down to his wrist and around the tips of his fingers in an unbroken line of text, like a black spiderwebbed glove. The handwriting was his own, but the words were frantic, scratching at the skin, made in haste and almost unreadable as an entire text. He could make out single words, like “Worthless”, “Mercy”, “Insane” and “fault”. He didn’t need to read it to know what it was about. He dressed himself quickly, being careful not to smudge or destroy the writing. He reached for his gloves. He hated wearing them, and knew that Will would accost him if he saw them, make him stay away and mother him to death. He knew Will meant well, but he just…

He struggled to find the words even in the confines of his own head. Shoving the black gloves back in the drawer they gathered dust in, he instead reached for a bottle lying in the same drawer. He had hoped to stop lying to Will, but this. 

He couldn't face it. Not now.  _ How he would react… _

‘No.’

He was ashamed that he actually had to say it out loud to ground himself, that he had so little control of his own mind. He decisively picked up the bottle and decanted some of its flowing liquid into the cap. Hazel had given it to him for his previous birthday, understanding shining in her eyes, whispering ‘Please don’t use it too often. I won’t give you more if you run out. You really need to tell him’

Nico had smiled tersely at her for that, but hugged her and thanked her for it. Now, he only had two caps left. Sighing, he gently poured the Mist over his arm. It settled in a blanket, covering the words, slowly painting a thin layer of plain olive skin over the arm. Now, Nico knew the words were still there, but no-one could see them. He breathed fully, the tenseness leaving his shoulders. Strapping on his sword, he set his face, and went to breakfast. 

***

Lou Ellen was waiting with Cecil and Will down at the entrance to the cafeteria. She glanced down at Nico’s arm and frowned, but nodded at him, and walked in, dragging Cecil behind her, leaving Nico with, what looked like, an exhausted Will.

‘Why do you look like you lost a fight with a Pandai’ Nico asked, bluntly. Will let out a deep sigh he seemed to have been harboring for several hours.

‘New campers. Came in last night on the wrong side of a monster attack. The guide who’d been sent to retrieve them died back in South Carolina. It’s an absolute miracle they made it here, albeit being pursued by a very angry manticore’

Nico frowned. The last time he’d seen a manticore, it had been the thing that dragged him into this whole camp half blood, demigod mess. Not that he didn’t doubt it wouldn’t have happened anyway.

‘Did either of them get hit?’

Will let out another sigh ‘Thank all the Gods they didn’t. They barely made it as it is, whole gallery of lacerations and scars on the both of them’

‘Ok, Ok, I don’t need all the details, I still want breakfast, and I’m going to be late for blade work mentoring anyway.’

‘I think both of them will be in that class’ Will mused, ‘Isn’t Percy doing that with you?’

Nico smiled ferally ‘I sure hope so. Always love an opportunity to beat him into the ground’

Will cast a disapproving frown on him, ‘Just because you won the last two fights, doesn’t mean your luck will hold. You only win about half of your fights’

Nico rolled his eyes, and marched into the cafeteria. Glancing over the food on offer, he felt sick. He knew he had told Will he was hungry, and probably couldn’t get away with skipping breakfast anyway, because sometimes he swore that Will was a son of Janus, not Apollo, with some manifestation of another set of eyes, but he just didn’t want to eat. It seemed worthless, a use of time that didn’t mean anything to him, but at the same time, everyone else was eating, no-one was sitting alone, eating nothing. He had long since gotten permission to not sit at the Hades cabin table, as he swore that some mornings he felt the weight of people’s whispers and stares and he had begun to avoid social meals on the whole. Will had given him a compromise he was grateful for, as he wanted nothing more than to not be alone, despite another overwhelming voice screaming for everyone to  _ back off _ !

Snatching a small carton of oreo o’s, Nico walked over to the Apollo table, sitting quietly next to Will, eating his cereal dry out of the box. He almost gagged at the first mouthful, but swallowed, combated Will’s glare at his choices with a smirk and reached into his pocket. The noise around him pulsated in an ebb and flow of sound, crashing against him like waves on the shore. He knew if he didn’t do this well, he would break down in a matter of minutes. Carefully tucking the wireless earphones he had pulled from his pocket into the palm of his hand, he waited until Will was shouting at someone at the other end of the table, for trying to set up a video game room in one of the file rooms at the infirmary, and quickly pushed them into his ears, thanking Leo silently, for making him an mp3 player that worked without attracting monsters, exploding in his hands, or short circuiting whenever he was in Camp Half Blood or Camp Jupiter. He let his hair fall forward and cover his ears, before discreetly scrolling through his music playlists before settling on something loud. For once he was glad Will was tired because they spent much of their breakfast in companionable silence, Will too tired to formulate sentences properly before his coffee kicked in, aside from yelling at his unfortunate siblings for the state of his infirmary. As soon as Will was close to finishing, Nico shook the earphones out of his ears, into his hand when pretending to tuck his hair behind his ears. Will, upon seeing the bad job he was doing of it, reached up, almost without looking, tucked Nico’s hair behind his ear, and went back to his coffee. Nico inwardly smiled, tucking the successfully extracted earphones into his pocket, without Will seeing. They exited the cafeteria, Will complaining about the unfairness of being exiled from his own infirmary and Nico nodding along. They stopped halfway to the training fields, Will sighing in defeat.

‘Please don’t get too carried away. I don’t want to re-attach more limbs than strictly necessary.’

Nico smiled at that. ‘No promises.’

Will grumbled at that about “selfish italian boyfriends who never take any care of themselves”, before kissing him gently on the cheek and walking off to the Apollo cabin to finish studying and then sleeping.

Nico stood for a second, watching him go, before turning on his heel and walking down to the training fields. He didn’t have to teach beginners until after lunch, giving him a few hours of aiding the elder campers and sparring. He marched over to the temporary weapons shed, where they were storing all the equipment during refurbishment, taking his black armour, courtesy of his father, and sitting on the benches at the side of the field to strap it on, starting with greaves and arm guards before moving onto chest and back armour. He left his helmet at the side of the field for now. He wouldn’t need it until later, and he didn’t want to end up sweatier than strictly necessary. Marching over to where Percy was standing, in front of two large groups, he looked over their turnout and grimaced. 

‘Is there a large population of Ares kids for a reason?’ he muttered to Percy.

‘One of their fighting tournaments in a few days. They plan to initiate the girl who came in this morning, just claimed. I would almost feel sorry for her if I, a, valued her life more than mine when it comes to death by Clarisse, or b, didn’t know she faced down a manticore with little more than a stick.’

‘You didn’t do much better when we ran into one’

‘At least I had the dignity to be saved by the hunters of Artemis. She got saved by an unfortunate bear’

Nico grimaced ‘She sounds like a danger magnet’

‘Well’ Percy muttered, ‘She will have met the standards of some of her siblings already.’

Nico punched him in the gap between his shoulder plates and arm guards, ‘Hey, my sister’s boyfriend’s one of those knuckleheads’

‘Roman! Not greek, doesn’t count,’ Percy countered, before smiling sheepishly at some of the glares being sent their way by the Ares campers.

‘Well, let’s get this over with’ Nico mumbled.

***

Nico threw himself onto the bench in the cafeteria, casting his meagre lunch down on the table. Will raised an eyebrow at the reddening bruise on his cheekbone. Nico scowled.

‘Contrary to popular belief, fighting three senior Ares campers at once is not a good idea, even if only two of them are actually worth shit at sword fighting.’

Will traced a thumb over the injury. ‘How’d this happen.’

‘One of them tried to flip me, which was against the rules, and consequently cracked the hilt of his sword against my face, when I reversed his throw to call him out on it.’

‘Serves you right for not wearing your helmet’ Will admonished, before closing his eyes and humming through a brief hymn to his father, his fingertips glowing softly where they held contact with Nico’s skin. Nico always hated it when Will belittled his own musical talent, because even if he couldn’t play an instrument to save his life, by the Gods, he could sing. Finishing the last three bars off quickly, Will opened his eyes and smiled. 

‘So glad I could finish that. This morning I think I would have passed out had I attempted that.'

‘Glad to know you’ve caught up on sleep, and now resemble a more traditional specimen of a human being’

Will rolled his eyes, ‘Don’t you have the class with the younger campers in ten minutes?’

Nico glanced outside, seeing the excitable twelve and thirteen year-olds drifting past the cafeteria entrance, with Percy leading them down, who briefly stopped to shake his head at Nico in mock disappointment.

‘Shit’ Nico shovelled food into his mouth, pretending to swallow, ‘Really shouldn’t have spent so long showering’

Will quirked an eyebrow at that.

‘You try washing blood out of your hair quickly’ Nico snapped playfully at him, before rushing out of the door.

***

‘You cut that close di Angelo’

Nico rolled his eyes, jogging, yet again, towards the training fields, dressed in full armour this time, his helmet under his arm. He turned and looked around him. The new campers stood off to the side, the girl already outfitted in Ares cabin armour, with a saw-bladed cleaver clutched in both hands, the wicked serrated blade as long as the two handed handle. She held it with a confidence that suggested constant use. Nico guessed she was the one who’d done the bulk of the fighting, because her companion didn’t look much of a fighter. He was willowy and gangly, with the build of a birch wand. His dark eyes were fearful, a sentiment Nico could sympathize with. Then again, the specialised weapon he had chosen was a glaive, which he gripped in a way that suggested he had trained with it in the past. Percy clapped his hands together, bringing an end to the chatter around them.

‘So, those of you who haven’t been here before, welcome to weapons training. I’m Percy Jackson, son of Poseidon, and Mr emo over there is Nico di Angelo, son of Hades.’

This comment on his parentage drew a glare from the girl and a gasp from the boy. The other children just kept any whispering to a minimum, something Nico wasn’t entirely sure he should be grateful for.

‘Anyway,’ Percy continued when the whispers dissipated, ‘For the first two lessons you have with us, you will be able to use whichever weapons you are currently most comfortable with, either sword, short range or staff. Then, we will split the sessions into staff work, archery, with the Apollo cabin, swordwork, with the two of us, and short range with Clarisse and the Ares cabin. For now, we’, he indicated Nico and himself, ’ Will be able to help with basic technique and footwork. This is mostly about gauging skill and which weapon you are best suited for. Clear?’

A chorus of ‘Yes’s signalled the beginning of the first warm up exercise.

***

Nico loved demonstrations. Right now, he and Percy were fighting with every scrap of ability either of them possessed. And it was glorious. With every parry, every swipe, Nico felt Percy’s tiredness. Nico had learned a while ago that if you weathered Percy’s bursts of energy and tired him out, beating him would be much easier. That’s not to say that it wasn’t extremely difficult to drive him to that point. Nico could feel his own exhaustion settling in his bones, but the scent of victory was close. Their duel escalated ‘till they were exchanging lightning fast blows with no breath between each attack. Finally, Nico twisted his sword around, getting just past Percy’s guard and twisting Riptide away, where it clattered against the dust.

‘Third time in a row this month Jackson, you owe me McDonalds’ Nico said, faking enthusiasm. Percy grimaced good-naturedly ‘I really should fix my defense when I get tired.’

Nico turned to the open mouthed junior campers who had been watching, fascinated. ‘That’s what we expect all of you to be able to do when you turn 18. That’s the level of skill it takes to be able to stay alive.’

Some of the teens looked motivated. Most of them looked intimidated. Percy sighed as he went to pick up Riptide, ‘Way to make an impression, di Angelo.’

He turned back towards the campers

‘Who’s first’

***

The boy and girl were the seventh pair to go up against Percy and Nico. At some point Will had come down to make sure Percy and Nico hadn’t done anything too serious to one another, and was now sitting on a bench, watching. Nico had already ridden off the mild satisfaction he’d felt at beating Percy, the first positive emotion he remembered really feeling today. Percy settled into a stance and said to the pair ‘When you’re ready’

In a burst of movement, both the boy and the girl darted at Nico, the girl reaching him first. She swung downwards in a devastating two-handed chop that exhuded roughness. She had learnt by necessity, making her technique sloppy. Nico stepped back, using the flat of his sword to first redirect the blow, and then whacking the back of her calf, where she had put a foot too far out, unbalancing her. She stumbled, and he turned to parry the spearing thrust the boy had directed towards him. He was the complete opposite, trained and learned in a club somewhere, but had never had to use his knowledge, making him hesitate. Nico got in his face and scared him off, before wheeling back to defend against the girl. The three of them became caught up in the fever of the fight, the girl aiming to sever, maim and kill, the boy darting with imprecise elegance, and Nico dancing between them, the perfect combination of technique and experience. The girl attempted to feint at some point, putting Nico in a unique position, where he was facing two blades at the same time, rather than the uncoordinated shambles he’d dealt with so far. Laughing inside, Nico pivoted, swiped down with his sword, catching the girl’s cleaver in the curve, driving it into the ground, gracefully leaning back over the immobilised weapon and just brushing past the spear blade. It didn’t touch his left arm, but as caught up as he was in the fight, Nico had forgotten to be careful about the mist shrouding his arm. The edge of the glaive caught it and slashed through it like it was silk. Nico cursed, shadow travelling a few metres away, hoping the mist would patch over before Will could see it. The boy’s eyes alighted on his arm, seeing what damage he’d struck. His eyes widened comically far. Nico self-consciously raised a hand to cover the tear. The boy stretched out a hand and to Nico’s horror, the mist started spooling away from his arm in a stream, drawn to the boy’s call.

_ The little fucker was a child of Hecate _

Now Nico’s whole arm was revealed, crawling with black writing. The girl spotted it too. Nico didn’t dare look over his shoulder at Percy and Will, but he could feel his emotions heightening, the temperature plummeting around him, the grass dying around him, the earth rumbling ominously. 

‘ _ Demon! Demon! _ ’ the boy cried in greek, his eyes terrified, the girl’s full of rage and hate. The boy dashed at him. Nico was too stunned to move, the glaive only made unsteady with the weight of Nico’s emotion. It slashed down the side of his leg. Nico heard Will’s yell now, he turned by instinct…

Will’s face was devastated. In that moment Nico felt everything fall apart. Everything he had thought might happen was happening and it was his fault, his fault, his fault. He needed to get away, to escape, to get out. He shadow travelled without thinking, hearing just the hint of his name on Will’s lips.

He landed hard on the floor of the Hades cabin. He was breathing hard and fast and he knew what was happening to him he just couldn’t do anything about it and  _ Oh god it was his fault, his fault, his fault _ . He could hear the people running and shouting outside his door, running to the training fields, to see what happened. It was all Nico could do not to let the tiny modicum of control he retained over his power set loose, or it could be so much worse.  _ Will would never forgive me, no he will never forgive me, I’m useless useless USELESS _

_ Make it stop _

_ Make it stop _

_ Please help me _

_ Make it stop _

_ It’s not happening _

_ It’s not happening _

_ It’s not happening _

_ It’s not happening _

_ It’s not happening _

He could hear Will enter his cabin. He tried to speak, to say anything

‘I can’t-’ he gasped before he cut himself off, a scream rising in his throat. His heartbeat hammered, a dull accompaniment to the thoughts whirling lightning fast through his head.

‘I can’t-’ he tried again ‘I can’t do this, I c-c, I, I, I, I can’t-’

His breaths panted out rabbit fast. Will didn’t move for several seconds. Then, Nico heard his steps trace away to the next cabin. He came back, but Nico couldn’t see him,  _ he musn’t see him _ , so he covered his face with his hands and curled his fingers in his hair, anything,  **anything** to be grounded, to survive.

_ I don’t want to be alone _

_ I don’t want to be alone _

_ Please don’t leave me _

_ Please don’t leave me _

_ Please, Will, Please, please _

_ I want Bianca,  _

_ I want Bianca, _

_ Where are you _

_ Please don’t leave me _

Will’s footsteps came through the door, walked through the room, turned on the TV Nico had been persuaded to put in when the refurbishments happened in Hades. The sound came loud in a swathe of static first, but Will quickly turned it down. Nico was aware he had said nothing. He wanted him to say something. He wanted him to stay silent. He didn’t want to talk, to have to talk.

_ Please don’t talk _

_ Please don’t talk _

_ SAY SOMETHING _

_ Please don’t talk _

_ ANYTHING, JUST SAY SOMETHING _

_ I can’t handle this  _

_ I can’t handle this if you talk _

_ PLEASE SAY SOMETHING _

The first tear spilled down Nico’s face. His expression immobile, giving nothing away of the raging star at his heart, tearing itself apart in opposite forces of 

_ It’s my fault _

_ It’s his fault _

_ It’s my fault _

**PLEASE SAY SOMETHING**

Will walked round in front of him and carefully placed something into Nico’s arms. Nico stiffened, his arms tightening around whatever it was, then he felt it. 

Another heartbeat

Another warmth

Something alive and warm and soft, something purring and staring out with wide eyes.

The sudden rush of calm and protectiveness snapped him out of the panic. He grounded himself.

_ He was here _

_ He was now _

He sank to his knees, tears soaking the cat’s fur, he knew it probably wasn’t appreciated, but he couldn’t stop.

Finally, he could speak, though his frazzled mind couldn’t handle much.

‘Cat. Cat. Cat.’

He repeated it over and over, his mind caught in the embrace of simplicity and childhood, his brain following the thoughts of a young, young boy, running, chased by his sister, in narrow paths running beside canals, in a place that felt like heaven, where he was torn from far too soon, and left alone for far too long. 

He curled around that second heartbeat, keeping it close, not caring how his long black hair gathered dust on the cold stone floor, not caring that anyone could be watching. Just keeping himself in the moment. 

He barely felt the fear.

Eventually, the cat began to struggle, limited by its own wont for freedom, away from the confines of a young boy’s arms, who gripped far too tight. Nico let his arms loosen, and the animal leapt away. The beginning of a picture was playing on the screen, a film Nico had seen months ago and felt so twisted up by, he’d called it his favourite. 

Will was heating water, a mix of dried herbs and blossoms, to soothe and calm, held gently in the other. He put a strainer on top of a mug and poured the water through them, Nico just sitting, content to watch for now. Then, he picked himself up and hugged the other boy from behind, in a clumsy awkward way a child latches on to their parent’s leg. Will stiffened and then relaxed, Nico’s head pitched forward against his shoulder. 

‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry’

Nico whispered quietly.

‘It’s not your fault. It’s never your fault.’

Will cut him off. He finished making whatever kind of tea he’d been working on, and turned back to face him, offering him the cup. He looked him in the eye. ‘Do you need me to leave you alone right now’

‘No’ Nico said, a dazed expression on his face, before it split into a smile. 'You're helping me!’

Will smiled softly. 'Ok, but I need to do something about your leg. If you're lucky, Lamia will come back.’

Nico let a small smile play across his face. He didn't flinch when Will touched the wound. He barely reacted when it closed up. Will said ‘do you want me to get Hazel’ when he was done. Nico nodded infinitesimally. Will smiled encouragingly at him and said 'Can you do me a favour then? Can you just stay here, watching your movie while I get her? Ok? Nod for yes if you don't want to talk’

Nico nodded again. Will smiled again and gently guided him to the TV, where Nico decided to sit cross legged on the floor. He watched his movie. He didn't see Will open the door to a worried Percy, a fretting Jason, a calm Annabeth and a harried Piper, who had just had to use quite a lot of charmspeak to get a hysterical group of kids to calm down.

Percy accosted Will as soon as he was out of the door. 

‘Is he ok? Had he calmed down? I'm really sorry Will, if I'd had known I would have stepped in earlier, I didn't think they were going to full on attack him like that’ and a thousand other apologies. Will took a deep breath. ‘He’s ok right now. He's stopped panicking. He's not gonna be particularly forthcoming in the talking department for the next few days but he will recover, from this one. I just hate knowing what is doing to him in the long run.’

Piper piped up. ‘They attacked him because the place that they were raised had very strict rules. Very Christian, etc. Their guide had no time to explain much in terms of Mythos beyond the names of stuff, so they applied their knowledge to their surroundings in a way that made it so they could make sense of it all. They genuinely saw him as a threat’

Annabeth cut in as well. ‘Now both have been claimed, both can be educated through their cabin heads and I can tell you right now, Lou Ellen is not pleased about Nico so she's on the warpath.’

Will grinned tiredly ‘Matt’s gonna have one hell of a time for his first few months.’ When he received multiple confused glances, he said 'The new guy's name is Matt. His Ares friend is called Rowan, which I more expected from a Demeter kid’

Jason chipped in for the first time. ‘We need to tell Hazel.’

‘Ah, about that,’ Will turned to Percy, ‘Can you give me a rainbow?’

Percy nodded, sending a spray of mist against the sun, creating a small rainbow. Will threw in a drachma and made the prayer. Hazel's face appeared in the Iris message, happy and smiling. 

‘Hey, it's been a while since we last called. How's my brother?’

'Hazel, I'm sorry to ask you because I know how fatiguing it will be, but can you Shadow travel here? Tell Frank you're going.’

Hazel's smile disappeared and her face morphed into the set of a centurion's. 'Acknowledged.’ she said, swiping an arm through the message. Ten minutes later, she stumbled out of the darkness cast by the noon-day sun. The others asked if they could go to help with campfire and the meeting and whatnot, leaving the sister and the lover standing outside their loved one's refuge. Will nodded at Hazel, and both of them entered the cabin. 

Nico was no longer watching the movie. He had paused it and was sitting on his bed, staring at the wall across from him. He barely reacted to his sister's entrance, just leaned into her shoulder when she sat next to him. Then, he slowly began to sign comprehensively in a way he could not speak. It was something Will, Hazel and him had practiced, so that they could still talk to him when he couldn't use his voice. 

**_I'm so sorry I dragged you both into this._ **

Hazel gently stalled his hands, took them in hers and interlaced her fingers in one, letting Will do the same with the other. 

'I think you have apologised far too much today for things that we would never blame you for. If there's anything left that you think is unforgivable, I forgive it.’ she glanced at Will, who said softly 'I forgive it too. I forgive you.’

'There.’ Hazel said softly. ‘do you want to finish the film with us?’

Nico nodded.

‘I will stay here tonight, same goes for Will. Just don't be too noisy’ she said with a wink.

Nico blushed and pulled his hand out of hers. The three of them sat down to finish the film. Hazel sat on the left, Nico holding her hand again, Will sitting on his other side, Nico propping himself up against Will's shoulder. Nico fell asleep halfway through, at which point Will and Hazel paused the movie. Hazel briefly said goodbye to fetch some overnight things from camp Jupiter. When she returned, she settled on the other side of the cabin, separated by a screen, something Nico had put in because he often still felt self conscious about his scars and didn't like anyone to see him in less than full day dress, leather jacket and all. Hazel just hoped that he could work through this, that it would improve. On the other side of the screen, Will curled around a sleepy Nico he'd had to wake up to change into nightwear and do their teeth and so on. Now he hugged the smaller, younger but so much older boy and hoped that he could help him the way Nico helped Will.

Because Nico deserved better than all of this.

Maybe Will could bring enough stability and unconditional support that he could gain that better. 

Because Will was willing to fight any demons Nico di Angelo suffered as long as he was happy.


End file.
